Nearly 99% of Global Internet Traffic Would Need to Go Offline to Destabilize Bitcoin

Wenbin Wu and Alexander Neumueller, researchers at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), one of the most authoritative analytical centers in the crypto industry, published an analysis stating that a meaningful impact on the Bitcoin blockchain is only possible in the event of a major disruption to global internet infrastructure.

According to their findings, partial damage to international submarine fiber-optic cables, which carry around 99% of global traffic, historically had no significant impact on the Bitcoin network. Their estimates suggest that even if 72–92% of all physical internet infrastructure were to fail, only about 10% of Bitcoin nodes would lose connectivity, which could potentially make the network vulnerable.

The researchers analyzed P2P network data from 2014 to 2025. Historical incident analysis showed that 87% of the 68 recorded submarine cable failures resulted in less than 5% of Bitcoin nodes going offline.

The authors also identified a significant difference between random failures and targeted attacks. While random damage would require disabling a large portion of cables, attacks on key infrastructure bottlenecks could be far more effective, reducing the critical threshold to 5–20%.

The study also noted that additional network resilience is provided by Tor, which is used by around 64% of Bitcoin nodes, making them effectively “invisible” through routing. At the same time, major Tor nodes are located in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, countries with advanced and redundant cable infrastructure, reducing the risk of simultaneous outages.

The researchers also found that the geographic diversification of mining doesn’t have a noticeable impact on network resilience, which isn’t determined by hashrate distribution. They also concluded that the correlation between cable damage and Bitcoin price is statistically insignificant.

Bitcoin developers proposed a gradual migration of the blockchain to quantum-resistant cryptography by 2030.